Return to Salem
by XxXMika-ChanXxX
Summary: It's been 321 years since the Salem Witch Trials shook the heart of early America, and one of the accusers is finally willing to tell her side of the story and how she became entangled in the web of lies, pain, death, and law that shaped her nation.


Title: Return to Salem

Rating: T

Summary: It's been 321 years since the Salem Witch Trials shook the heart of early America, and one of the accusers is finally willing to tell her side of the story and how she became entangled in the web of lies, pain, death, and law that shaped her nation. Now, as a meeting is held in her house in Salem- due to renovation work on her house in Boston- the souls of the accused show themselves and the truth will be revealed to the world.

AN: This piece is historical fiction, meaning while the people and events for the most part are real it won't be entirely accurate. Do not take this story as fact. This idea is a product of an upcoming trip, reading the Crucible, and my general inner historian. This fic also contains a female America, named Amelia Toria Jones, and since this is 1692-for parts that are either "journal" excerpts or flashbacks- her name is Victoria. Now on to the story.

Chapter One: Journal Entry and Dreams

February 29th in the year of our Lord 1692

It is finally nearing the end of winter, and I must confess something truly terrible. I only hope there be no punishment and that God doesn't judge to harshly this sin. Several other local girls and I danced by the light of a fire while Abigail and Betty's servant showed us magick. It was all fun until Reverend Parris caught us. Why I never have been so scared in my life! It was as he showed I saw in the flames a trial with Abigail and us girls as the witnesses, and I swear on the Holy Book, I saw a hanging take place and twenty six rose petals laid under the noose. We can only now pray that this doesn't end horrible, but it is now in the good Lord's hands.-excerpt from the Journal of Amelia Toria Jones.

The sounds of whispers filled her ears, typical of the crowd that always gathered during the hangings of Salem's Witches. The words were undistinguishable gibberish to her dream ears. She looked at the Hanging tree, a tree that she always used to love to climb as a young girl and her eyes focused on the noose hanging from a graceful limb roughly six feet off the ground. The noose was slightly frayed from constant use and it swung lightly in the late spring breeze. She noticed 26 blood red petals forming a circle beneath the noose's shadow and she shivered. The crowd around her parted like the Red Sea did for Moses in the Holy Bible, all to make way for the next victim to die.

The person who parted the crowds while being escorted to their death was an old woman that had clearly aged gracefully. The woman had cloud white curls atop her head, and looked too sweet and tiny to be accused of such a horrid crime. As the noose was being placed around her thin neck, the woman held her head up high and her eyes seemed to burn into Victoria's soul and read every sin that she had ever committed.

"Any last words before you hang you witch?" One of the escorts ask, not really looking at the old woman as human but as something like the scum of the earth; worthless and beneath him.

"Yes, I do have some words. These trials are nothing but ignes fatui and I can only hope that the Good Lord can forgive you of your sins, like I have already forgiven you." The woman states looking directly at Victoria.

Before anyone can say anything, the woman jumps off the box that they had her stand on while they adjusted the noose. It only served to anger the crowd, as they were denied their chances at their version of justice and humiliating the poor woman. She took her own life, she saw the chance to at least regain some control and took it, even though it seemed that she denied herself access to Heaven and the Lord's glorious presence.

A gasp escaped her lips, causing Amelia Jones to wake up from the dream. She looked around her room frantically, making sure that she was in her own home and that it was 2013 and not 1692. She knew that something big must be happening soon if she was having that dream again. She only had it, after the first hundred years of having it every night, when events of great importance to her history happened or new evidence came to light to clear those people accused so long ago.

While it may have been said that the last person was cleared in 2001, Amelia knew the truth. Several more people still remain accused because the records were lost to her Revolution, and she regretted not being able to save those documents for the most part. The ones that she did save she hid at the sites or in the archives, somewhere where a historian or anybody could easily find it. It was one of the few things she couldn't stand. The guilt of knowing that she helped condemned her own people.

Amelia quickly and quietly got ready for her day and knowing that there was a meeting or five to be had, she had donned something unusual for her personality. She chose to wear a formal business suit skirt and jacket with a white blouse on underneath. She wore not even a tiny pop of color, feeling more somber because of the dream and the memories it brought up.

The ring tone that she had set for whenever England called, the song Wasting All These Tears by Cassadee Pope, startled her out of her thoughts. The ringtone also brought a small smile to her face as she remembered exactly why she set that as his song, and that in itself was an entirely different and complicated story.

"Hello?" She answers, wondering why he was calling her right before she had to leave for the meeting.

"Amelia. I hate to say it, but the meeting's location that you wanted to use is undergoing renovation work, so we have to have it at another location. Where do you suggest?" The Brit says in a hurry, never having liked that things seemed to always fall apart around him and hating the incompetence of people, as Amelia could clearly tell by his tone of voice.

"My house in Salem should be fine, after all it isn't that far from the original meeting place, and I do need to take care of something in Salem." She answers after a moment of thinking, though the last part was more of an afterthought.

"Very well, and since a majority of us our near Salem, we should be at your house in a half hour. See you at the meeting Amelia." England hangs up after saying that.

This causes Amelia to drop her phone, and mutter a stream of curses in all the languages spoken in her nation. She knew she was going to regret this, but deep down she also knew that somehow, someway that this whole mess would work out. But it was now out of her hands.

"'It is now in the good Lord's hands.'" She whispers, unconsciously quoting part of a diary entry she made 321 years ago, only a few months before the madness of the Witch Trials engulfed her newly forming nation.


End file.
